A DUNDEE MP believes the city will be “less safe” if 16 firefighter jobs are axed.

The Courier revealed yesterday that the jobs— 10% of frontline personnel —will be shed within a year owing to budget restraints.

Dundee West Labour MP Jim McGovern voiced his “serious concern.”

He said yesterday, “The proposed loss of 16 front-line firefighters concerns me greatly.

“Cuts in any of the emergency services put lives in danger and, although the chief fire officer assures us the loss of 16 firefighters, 10% of the workforce, will not affect public safety, fewer firefighters must mean a less safe Dundee.

“I urge the Scottish Executive to increase funding to the Scottish Fire Service to ensure cities like Dundee do not…put community safety at risk to stay on budget.

“It is unsurprising that the emergency services are yet again low on the Executive’s priority list. We have seen the SNP-led Executive break its promise to provide 1000 new police officers on the beat in Scotland.”

The Fire Brigade Union claims the cuts will cost lives and have vowed to fight the cuts and claim Tayside Fire and Rescue’s local integrated risk management plan, drawn up in 2005, would have increased the number of firefighters and that the job cuts are purely a money-saving measure.

Tayside FBU secretary Jim Malone is urging politicians and the public to support the union’s fight to retain the posts. He wants the public to respond to the cutbacks through its consultation document Towards A Safer Tayside, which details plans for 2008/09.

The consultation process concludes on February 11.

The union met yesterday morning and afterwards Mr Malone said, “The meeting went very well. There was a resolve shown by the members to fight and reverse these proposals.

“We’d urge the public to respond through the consultation process or through their elected members by phoning them or attending one of their surgeries.

“Let them know your feelings because the service can’t be the same with less firefighters and to argue anything different is a case of them pulling the wool.”

Meanwhile, Dundee East SNP MP Stewart Hosie said yesterday he was keeping close tabs on the situation but wanted to hear how Tayside Fire and Rescue justify the cuts.

“I have received representations from the Fire Brigade Union about the proposed changes,” he said. “I am meeting the chief fire officer on Friday and will ask him to justify the changes he seeks and will consider fully the implications of those changes for the people of Tayside.”

He intends to attend the Tayside Joint Fire Board meeting on Monday, which will be lobbied by the FBU.

Councillor Jim Barrie, a city council member of the board, said its members would have to be satisfied nobody was put at risk by any cuts in the number of firefighters in Dundee.

He said, “I was concerned enough about the reduction in personnel to contact the chief fire officer, Stephen Hunter, last Friday, in my role as a member of the Tayside Fire Board.

“His position was that to fund the above-inflation pay rise for firefighters since 2003 as part of the settlement of the industrial dispute, savings from within the service were needed.”